


fanaa

by loupettes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27091567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loupettes/pseuds/loupettes
Summary: "I have to let go."Ten x Rose, missing scene set immediately afterthe Satan Pit
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	fanaa

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue prompt: "I have to let go."

When her feet finally reached the floor, her hands slipped down his arms and they spent a moment taking the other in, beaming at each other as they did. _Rose Tyler_ , he thought. Those three syllables sounded in his head so familiar and established that he was sure they rang around his mind at all times of the day, steering him to safety amongst the chaos of his thoughts. 

After a few moments, her smile slowly started to fade. Not completely, but enough for him to catch the worry reach her eyes. She looked down at his orange suit and he saw her withhold a cry as she anxiously started fiddling with the straps, feeling around frantically to find the zip or buttons or whatever the hell would get him out of it so she could just see him in his regular old suit, his regular old shirt and his regular old tie and put her mind at ease. 

“God, how do you get this thing _off_?”

“You speak like this is your first time taking a man out of his spacesuit.”

“Oddly enough, _it_ _is_.”

He chuckled, but the humour was only an echo amid his concern. He never took his eyes off her face, watching the relief wash over her once he was returned safely to her, all trace of that planet and that beast erased. He tossed the suit to the side, holding her hands steady as she traced the blue pinstripes down his lapels. 

“Yep. That’s better. Much prefer this suit on you.”

“And you said I should have gone with the blue tie this morning.”

“I stand by it, the blue is very becoming on you.”

He grinned, returning back to the control panel and reaching for the intercom. “Zach? We’ll be off, now. Have a good trip home. And the next time you get curious about something…” he trailed off, resigning indignantly. “Oh, what’s the point. You’ll just go blundering in. The human race.”

“But Doctor, what did you find down there? That creature, what was it?”

“I don’t know.” He said, partially in earnest. “Never did decipher that writing. But that’s good! Day I know everything? Might as well stop.”

“What do you think it was, really?” Rose wasn’t asking him out of curiosity. She was asking him for the same reason she needed to see him out of that orange suit. She needed reassurance.

“I think…” he had no idea what to say. He knew what she needed to hear, but it was becoming tricker to lie to her these days, not when she looked at him so earnestly, so hopefully sometimes. “We beat it. That’s good enough for me.”

“It said I was going to die in battle.”

He knew it was coming, and he knew what to say in response to it. The only thing he didn’t know was whether he could say it convincingly now the moment had come. “Then it lied.”

She gave him a smile in return that told him he’d done it, he’d convinced her. Now the hard part was convincing himself.

“Right, onwards, upwards. Ida? See you again, maybe.”

“I hope so.”

“And thanks, boys!” Rose added, gleefully.

“Hang on though, Doctor. You never really said. You two, who are you?”

 _Very_ good question. He looked at her and smiled. “Oh, the stuff of legend.”

Once he’d disconnected the intercom and released their ship from his tow, Rose briefly looked down nervously before turning to look him in the eyes as confidently as she could muster. She swallowed, but her chin betrayed her brave visage and trembled. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his chest, but it was a much softer embrace, with less joy and excitement but with more trepidation. His brow furrowed. She was nervous. 

She slowly pulled away, but dared herself to keep her eyes on his as she held out her hand in front of her. Not a question, not a request. An invitation. She searched his eyes for any kind of decline, any plea for her to just _not do this_ , that this was going too far. But he didn’t offer her one. Couldn’t physically offer her one. He didn’t know if he was reluctant, unsure or certain when he took hold of her hand in return. 

She took one uncertain, but steady, step backwards. Her eyes never left his as she fought to keep her expression stable, and she took his lack of protest to more confidently yet still slowly take another step back. Still giving him enough time to stop her, still conveying that option remaining open to him with her gaze. By the time one of his legs involuntarily moved forward towards her, he had just about started to give in. He continued to watch her carefully because they both knew what this meant. It wasn’t so much that his mind was screaming for him to stay more so that his hearts were screaming for him to follow louder.

Her steps backwards became more sure and certain as his strides began to match hers, and without letting go of his hand she turned to face forward, still leading him nervously. Her room wasn’t too far away, and it certainly wasn’t enough time for him to get a hold of himself and stop this before it got out of hand. She was walking slowly, though. Deliberately. Like she was giving him the chance to think about it and say no. He _wished_ he could say no. He desperately needed to put a stop to this right now, but there was only so much fight he had left in him to resist this, to resist _her_.

They stopped outside her room and she once more looked down apprehensively. His gaze never drew from her face as she fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt. _This is a bad idea,_ he reminded himself. _Tell her now. Be firm, it’s off the table._ But for the first time in a very long time, he appeared to be entirely governed by that emptiness in the middle of his chest, like it was filling up somehow and soon would overflow, taking over the rest of his body and all reason he might have. It was one of the biggest drawbacks he had to his being slightly more human inclined than his predecessors. 

She finally looked back up at him and he could see how hard she was trying to conceal her nerves. He didn’t know _why_ she was nervous, it was only _him_. Humans really could be quite bizarre in their rationale behind attributing certain emotions to physiological responses. He looked at her calmly, or as calmly as he could, and drew a deep breath. _Put an end to this, now._

Her eyes narrowed as she searched his and he knew she could sense his unease. He knew exactly what she was thinking: she didn’t want to push him. But there came a time when one of them had to make the first move. She was being brave, and he was being a coward. 

She stood up on her tiptoes and slowly wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him into a hug. Not their usual hug, not even the ones they gave each other for no other reason than they wanted one. This hug was charged, full of implications and anticipation. He sighed, loosely and gently slipping his own arms around her waist before tightening their hold on her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in. _Come on, stop this._ But he couldn’t. And no matter how hard he tried over the next few moments, the next few _agonising_ moments of want and longing, no matter how much he told himself this was a terrible idea, he just couldn’t pull away. _Pull back_ , he pleaded with himself.

“I have to let go.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.” 

She was quiet, but her breathing was shallow and her heart was beating so forcefully it almost felt like she was deliberately knocking at his chest to let her in. He hesitated before he continued, his voice barely a whisper.

“Because if I don’t let go of you now, Rose, right now, I’ll follow you into your room and we both know what will happen. We both know what it’ll mean. And we won’t be able to change it. Neither of us would want to, at least not at first. But soon, and it’ll be a lot sooner than you think, you’ll want to take it back. You’ll realise that it stops there. That we can’t build on anything, because I’m a time lord and you’re a human. I’m near-immortal next to you, because you most certainly aren’t. And then you’ll feel like you won’t be able to leave, like you’re trapped with me because me coming into your room right now isn’t accepting an invitation, it isn’t just a choice, it’s a promise. A promise that you’re going to have to, one day, break. So we need to stop, now. Stop this from going any further.” 

He’d noticed that her heart had slowed, still beating strongly but at a much steadier and less alarming pace. “That’s an awful lot about how I’d feel,” she mumbled into his neck. “But I already know how I feel. I want to know how _you_ feel.”

He sighed. She was right, as usual. There he goes again, making decisions for the two of them based on how he thinks she’s feeling and what’s best for her. She’s asking him now how he feels, and he owes her at least the truth. But he can’t give that to her, because telling her how he felt would do neither of them any good. If he told her, truthfully, how he felt, if he told her how much he _adores her_ , needs her, how much he would happily offer up his remaining two regenerations if it meant keeping her safe, but then tell her he can’t be with her, it would destroy her. And if he did tell her, and they decided to act on it and start something new, and word gets out that he, the last of the time lords, _the Executioner_ and _the Great Destroyer_ , loved this woman as much as he did, that made her the most vulnerable target in the whole universe.

“I have to let go.”

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

He felt her bite down on her bottom lip to stop herself from saying whatever it was that she wanted to say to him. She conceded, of course. She never pushed him, not in these situations. He would kiss her right now, just as he always wanted to these days if it weren’t so dreadfully contradictory. He tried to adhere to one decision as much as he could, even if the words coming out of his mouth and the actions portrayed by his body didn’t always reflect that stance he’d decided to stick to months ago, he tried his hardest to make things the least bit confusing for her. But he was well aware that, especially these past few weeks, he wasn’t doing a good job at it. 

“Stay with me?”

She _was_ asking this time. And it was a different kind of question, he had no idea how she did it. She wasn’t asking him to give her any more of whatever he felt comfortable giving her. She could have quite easily added “tonight” or even “forever” onto the end of that sentence because she’s giving him the rest of her life and he’s offering her only the chance to in return. Surely she must wonder what _his_ commitments were to _her_ , what _he_ was promising her, and it pained him to know he was hurting her by not explicitly telling her, not even _showing_ her. 

He pulled away from her and put his hands on her cheeks, cradling her face as he leaned his forehead against hers. The _feel_ of her skin against his, knowing they were safe in the TARDIS and he had her here with him… he’d struggle to find anywhere else he’d rather be. He grinned to himself, and she grinned in response. And soon, they both began to chuckle. “The second night in a row listening to you snore away? That’s asking a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Considering you chucked yourself into _literal_ hell, without telling me, leaving me behind stranded on a planet that not two hours later fell into an _actual_ _black hole_ , I think I’m allowed to ask you to stay with me at least _this_ _time_.”

“Oh, alright.” He rolled his eyes in jest and kissed her forehead. “I suppose you did just save us from both of those things, so I owe you.”

“I think you also owe me a cup of tea and that packet of biscuits in the cupboard.”

“Don’t get too greedy.”

“With the biscuits or the IOUs?”

“Both,” he accused, poking her in the ribs. “One small problem, though.”

“You ate the whole packet of biscuits already, didn’t you?”

But he was already halfway down the corridor, making his escape before she could tell him off. 


End file.
